Can the historical event on 15 December be considered a victory, what goals does the new Church have before itself to gain the trust of world Orthodoxy, and what reform plan it should have are some of the questions we discussed with Fr. Nicholas Denysenko

Religious Studies

In the context of recent events in the Orthodox world, disputes over the boundaries of church institutions often arise between the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Kyiv and Moscow. Ukraine accuses Russia of misappropriating the territory of the Kyiv Metropolis. In its turn, Moscow appeals to the fact that the ancient Kyiv Metropolis differs from the territory of modern Ukraine. RISU decided to clarify this topic, getting advice from historians. Based on this research, we prepared an infographic.

The first question that arises concerning Ukraine is this: with what right and based on which holy canons, does Russia today claim the ecclesiastical and administrative dependency of the Metropolis of Kyiv?

Dnipro archaeologists find unique stone cross

A new item has recently been added to the collection of stone idols of the Dnipro Historical Museum.

Archaeologists have found a stone cross on one of the burial mounds in the middle of the field near Magdalynivka village. The Christian symbol, according to researches, may have been made from a more ancient sculpture, which dates back thousands years, Channel 5 has reported.

The stone on the mound in the middle of the field looks like a canonical Christian cross. The inscriptions on it are probably the epitaph. However, the researchers also established something different: “Usually they wrote, ‘Here is the servant of God resting ...” and then the name. Most probably here we have the same inscription, but the characters depicted on it may be not Christian.”

The stone cross, which is no less than hundreds of years old is not a spontaneous find. It was featured on ancient maps studied by an 18-year-old student. He also found a remaining mound with an artifact.

Ilia Hodyna, studying the history of his native land of Magdalynivka, found on the maps dating back to the 1960s, three burial mounds, two of which were already plowed by farmers. Hoping to find the remains of artifacts, the young man came to several times to do some search.

He recalls, “There was a mark of the stone cross ... Just the way as the present-day topographical maps indicate burial mounds as trigonometric points, so I saw the mark of the cross.”

However, the scholars suppose that the artifact could be made from a more ancient stone statue.

“If this is what we think, if it is an authentic Polovtsian statue, dating back to the 12th century AD, this is the time when the Polovtsians stayed on this land.” If this version confirms itself, it may prove to be a unique monument the researchers have never seen before” says archaeologist Oleksandr Staryk.

The artifact from the Magdalynivka mound was taken to the Dnipro Historic Museum for study, restoration and preservation.